Chapter 4 - THE BOX IN THE GARAGE
Jonathan did not let Emily drive home alone.
She argued.
He ignored her.
“I have security.”
“I don’t.”
“Exactly.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does to me.”
Forty minutes later, a black SUV stopped outside Linda Carter’s modest brick house in Dayton.
Emily jumped out before the driver opened her door.
Her mother was waiting.
Linda Carter was sixty, small, silver beginning to thread through her blond hair.
Emily hugged her tightly.
Jonathan remained near the doorway.
Linda looked over Emily’s shoulder.
“Is that your boss?”
“Technically.”
“He looks angry.”
“He often does.”
“I heard that,” Jonathan said.
Linda smiled.
“Good. Come inside.”
Emily wanted to disappear.
Instead, the billionaire CEO of Alderstone Development sat at her mother’s kitchen table beneath a ceramic rooster while Linda poured him grocery-store coffee.
Then they went to the garage.
Ray Carter’s belongings remained stacked along one wall.
Tools.
Photographs.
Construction manuals.
Boxes Linda had never been able to throw away.
Emily opened the first.
Nothing.
Second.
Nothing.
The third contained old project binders.
Jonathan knelt beside her.
Emily pulled one free.
ALDERSTONE — MERIDIAN EAST — 2017.
Jonathan’s expression sharpened.
“Your father worked Meridian?”
“Apparently.”
They opened it.
Inspection notes.
Structural drawings.
Daily logs.
Then Emily found an envelope.
Her name was written on it.
EM.
Her hands began trembling.
She opened it.
Inside was a letter.
Em, if you ever find this, I probably waited too long to decide what to do.
Emily sat down hard on an overturned bucket.
Jonathan crouched beside her.
She kept reading.
Ray described concrete substitutions.
Drainage modifications.
Inspection documents signed before work had been completed.
He had complained.
His supervisor told him to stop asking questions.
Then came one name.
Malcolm Pierce.
Emily looked up.
Jonathan had gone pale.
“He was there?”
“Regional development director.”
The letter continued.
Ray had copied photographs and reports because he feared records were being altered.
He had planned to send them to regulators.
Then came the sentence that made Emily’s blood turn cold.
Two days after I told Pierce I had copies, someone cut the brake line on my truck.
Emily covered her mouth.
Her father had survived that incident.
Three months later, he died when his replacement truck crossed the center line on a wet highway.
The police ruled it an accident.
Emily had never questioned it.
Until now.
Jonathan stood.
“We’re calling the police.”
Emily grabbed his wrist.
“Wait.”
He looked down at her hand.
She released him.
“If Malcolm knows these records exist, and we suddenly go to police with one letter, what happens?”
“He gets investigated.”
“Or destroys everything else.”
Jonathan’s jaw tightened.
“He doesn’t get the opportunity.”
They photographed every document.
Jonathan called Alderstone’s outside counsel.
Not internal legal.
Outside.
Then his security team transported the original box to a secure location.
By midnight, Emily sat on the porch steps.
Jonathan came outside.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I’m not good at it.”
“Neither am I tonight.”
He sat one step below her.
For a while, neither spoke.
Emily finally whispered, “I spent four years being angry at my dad.”
Jonathan turned.
“For dying.”
Her voice cracked.
“I know that sounds horrible.”
“No.”
“He missed my graduation. He never saw my first apartment. Every time something went wrong, I was angry because he wasn’t there to fix it.”
Jonathan looked toward the dark street.
“My father died when I was twenty-four.”
Emily glanced at him.
“I’m sorry.”
“He had a heart attack during a board meeting.”
Jonathan gave a faint, bitter smile.
“His last voicemail to me was about parking ratios.”
Emily laughed unexpectedly.
So did he.
It was small.
Human.
Then Jonathan’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed immediately.
“When?”
Emily watched him stand.
“What happened?”
Jonathan ended the call.
“Someone entered Alderstone headquarters forty minutes ago using executive credentials.”
“Who?”
“They disabled two cameras.”
Her stomach tightened.
“What did they take?”
Jonathan looked directly at her.
“Your employment file.”
Emily stood.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
His phone buzzed again.
A photograph arrived.
Jonathan opened it.
Emily saw her own face.
A picture taken that evening.
Her standing outside her mother’s house.
Beneath it were five words.
SHE SHOULD HAVE STAYED UNEMPLOYED.
Jonathan’s entire demeanor changed.
The businessman disappeared.
Something colder replaced him.
He called security.
“Move Linda Carter tonight.”
Emily stared.
“You can’t move my mother.”
Linda opened the screen door behind them.
“He absolutely can.”
“Mom.”
“I’ve watched enough television to know when the rich angry man with security is useful.”
Despite everything, Emily nearly laughed.
Jonathan didn’t.
He looked at the photograph again.
Then at Emily.
“This is no longer an internal audit.”
“What is it?”
“A threat.”
Emily stepped closer.
“Then don’t shut me out.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
“Because tomorrow you’re not coming to work.”
She stared.
“You just shut me out.”
“You’re going somewhere else.”
“Where?”
Jonathan showed her another file.
Alderstone had twelve developments connected to Malcolm’s approval chain.
One stood out.
An abandoned luxury hotel project in Cincinnati.
Construction had stopped after unexplained foundation problems.
Ray Carter had been its site foreman.
Jonathan tapped the address.
“If your father found something, that may be where it started.”
Emily looked at him.
“When do we leave?”
“Six.”
“In the morning?”
“Yes.”
“That’s barbaric.”
For the first time that night, Jonathan smiled.
“Welcome to Alderstone.”
May you like
But twenty miles away, in a dark office, Malcolm Pierce was already watching security footage of Jonathan leaving with Emily.
And on his desk sat another copy of Ray Carter’s letter.
